“Who wants to rape Hilary Sargent about Minecraft? I would – I wouldn’t – Vote. “Thus, on Twitter, a woman who is a journalist can find a poll about her own rape, presumably in the minds of its creators less horrible (or incriminating) because it is sublimated in the fantasy of a video game Too bad that Sargent, who is an expert on neo-Nazi movements and online disinformation of the galaxy of white supremacism in the United States, receives daily allusions and very real threats: made public the home address, the tax returns and – which he did explode his anger – the name of his son.
Journalists who, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, deal with technology and the increasingly relevant issue of disinformation on media and social media have long been the subject of serious forms of online aggression, even with sexist and violent connotations. Many are young, competent and followed by tens of thousands of people – and often their visibility and popularity becomes proportional to the hatred that is poured out on them.
Taylor Lorenz’s denunciation
The case that is being discussed these days is that of the thirty year old Taylor Lorenz, for a year and a half in force at New York Times for the scope beat (the specialization) of technology. On the occasion of March 8 she had published a tweet in which she denounced the “campaign of aggression and defamation” of which she had been a victim for some time and asking for solidarity for all the women who have to suffer these attacks every day.
The post generated solidarity but also aroused the attention of two colleagues, apparently on opposite sides. On the one hand, a serial hater like Fox News’ anchorman, Tucker Carlson. On the other, Glenn Greenwald, the champion of freedom of expression – it was he who collected the revelations of Edward snowden on the mass surveillance of the National Security Agency around the world.
It is from the times of Donald Trump, of which he has been a blatantly advocate and unofficial spokesperson for years, that Carlson targets liberal outlets, New York Times ahead. But this time he identified a specific objective in Lorenz: with his photo and his name prominently displayed on the screen, he offered his millions of viewers a public pillory for almost ten minutes, made up of jeers, insults, insinuations.
Result: the denunciation of an aggression campaign resulted in an even more amplified aggression. As Lorenz herself defined it: “An attempt to mobilize an army of followers to memorize my name and instigate violence. The extent of these attacks is unimaginable. There is no escape.”
Against Lorenz also Gleen Greenwald
Greenwald has more subtly used the same arguments as Carlson, of which he has recently become an admirer and enthusiastic guest: journalists pampered and spoiled by the big newspapers have no right to complain if they receive attacks. “Taylor Lorenz is a journalism star in one of the most influential newspapers in the US, and perhaps in the West. His work is often featured on the front page. This victimization of his is revolting: he should try to find out what it means for journalists to really be persecuted “.
Here, in Greenwald’s case, another layer of resentment is added: in recent years he has been engaged in an all-out war against the mainstream of the media (starting with liberal ones, such as the New York Times, who also uncovered Snowden’s bombshell revelations with him). Like other authors allergic to the verification and editing processes of major newspapers, he took refuge on the Substack platform where you pay to read the “big names”, without filters. And the relations between the two camps – journalists “guaranteed” against “big names” on their own – are often seasoned with vitriolic exchanges via social media.
The precedents in the world of gaming
Attacks against tech reporters are not new: the first striking cases occurred in the gaming world and date back to 2014, with what became known as the GamerGate, a real “Internet war” born with the outburst of a boyfriend left by a video game developer who opened the Pandora’s box of self-referential misogyny in the world of gamers, with a concerted lynching against women – gamers, developers, journalists – made up of fake profiles, “shitstorm” on Twitter, disparaging hashtags.
It was not just a scuffle in the video game subculture, but – as the Washington Post – a “proxy war for a greater cultural battle to reclaim space, visibility, inclusion”. Which is what we are witnessing now: women demanding space, visibility, inclusion. And for this they are attacked.
Here is the decalogue of sexism: Michela Murgia tells the language that discriminates against women
by Maria Novella De Luca
Journalists threatened in Italy
The boundary between online and offline aggression does not exist: the sense of physical insecurity, discomfort, psychological pressures are very real results of very concrete attacks, even if entrusted to the Net. The Italian journalists who recently offered their own are well aware of this. testimony to the book of Silvia Garambois e Paola Rizzi “#STAIZITTA journalist”: from Marianna Aprile a Monica Naples, gives Angela Caponnetto a Nunzia Vallini, it’s still Marilù Mastrogiovanni, Elisabetta Esposito, Antonella Naples.
Subject of real campaigns of insults, intimidation, falsification, for having publicly done his job as an investigative journalist, anti-mafia reporter, political reporter. And many, many more could be added to the list. According to the Ossigeno Observatory, 69 journalists are threatened in Italy in 2020 through disparaging posts on social media, sexist insults.
The result of these campaigns, especially if experienced in solitude by the victim, are not only physical and psychological stress, but also self-censorship and professional harm. “Some decide to retire to protect themselves, they wonder if writing a certain article is worth the abuses that will follow. And some stop being a journalist altogether”, she tells on Washington Post the former public editor of the New York Times Margaret Sullivan.
The coalition against online hate
The Lorenz case has lifted the veil for hundreds, thousands of other women. The International Women’s Media Foundation together with other American and international organizations (among others: Committee to Protect Journalists, Electronic Frontier Foundation, International Center for Journalists, Reporters Without Borders) have launched the “Coalition against online hate”, a refuge site for those who find themselves in the vortex of a hate campaign but also for the editorial offices and their management: to protect themselves all together and defuse the language of hate. Because “online violence is real violence, with real consequences”.
.